2024-25: Human Experience
Each year the Art Collection’s exhibitions, talks and events are directly inspired by the research at the University. This year our chosen focus has been Human Experience, where we have examined how artists have created work through and about different points of human crisis. From displacement, the COVID-19 Pandemic to Climate Change, our exhibitions have had at their heart the ability of artists to continue to create thought-provoking and meaningful work through and about troubling times.
The Pathfoot Project, which works with students from both the University of Stirling and the Conservatoire, is always a highlight of our year. The students visit the gallery and then create work inspired by this experience. It is always wonderful to see how they creatively interpret the artworks and exhibitions on display. This year is no exception, and I have enjoyed reading responses to artworks from the Collection including works by Barbara Hepworth, Ken Currie, John Craxton and Margaret Mitchell alongside responses to our exhibition This Fragile Earth on loan from the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation.
During this year, it has been impossible to not feel troubled by the scale of human crises across the world, but I hope these responses provide a small comfort in the resilience of the human spirit and the power of art, music and writing to provide us with new perspectives and points of connection.
Sarah Bromage
Head of University Collections
________
I'm delighted to introduce you to our MLitt in Creative Writing students of 2024/25 who have responded, in this pamphlet, to the Pathfoot Art Collection's exhibition theme of 'Human Experience' with ekphrastic work which imaginatively and inventively responds to the art on the walls and the sculptures in the courtyards. Writing about art should, ideally, do more than just describe the visual. Instead, it should be in conversation with the exhibition, responding emotionally to what the art evokes in the viewer. And this cohort of extremely talented writers do exactly that, with bold, experimental pieces which weave a visual through a poem, play with the form to augment the content, or present the dialogue between artwork and writer directly onto the page. You'll find much to admire in the pages which follow, but the pieces will also hopefully invite you to revisit the artworks in the Collection and see something new within them. In having that second look at the paintings and sculpture, can I encourage you also to take note of the names beneath the poetry and prose pieces, because there are plenty of writers here you'll want to keep an eye out for in the future...
Dr Liam Bell
Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing
_____________
Our composers at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland have a wide range of interests and musical backgrounds, but are all interested in collaborating, and finding a definition for collaboration which will fit within their own practice. This project has therefore been a highlight of our calendar over the last few years, allowing our composers to draw on Sarah's knowledge of the Collection, respond to one or more of the artworks that can be seen in and around the building, and then to work directly with professional musicians, to create new pieces of music that are linked to the Pathfoot Building and its fantastic collection of art. This year's themed exhibition - This Fragile Earth - has been a useful tool to encourage our composers to consider their place in the world, and the impact of humanity and art-making on our planet.
Oliver Searle
Head of Composition
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
____________________________________________________________________________
Archæan
Ella Cookson
inspired by Figure (Archæan), Barbara Hepworth, 1959
Archæan, derived from the Greek word for beginning, refers to the era hosting the earliest formation of life on Earth. Taking inspiration from Barbara Hepworth's sculptural portrayal of this era, my piece explores concepts of emergence and transformation. Hepworth’s use of shape captures an organic sense of motion within its solid structure, symbolic of perpetual evolution; this is mirrored in a musical sense through gradual reshaping, refining, and solidifying of thematic elements. I also explored the connective and rich qualities of negative space, in ode to Hepworth’s innovative approach to form which gives equal importance to the space both around and within an object.
My piece opens with all ensemble members playing ocarinas, inviting the performers to set aside their familiar instruments and engage in a form of music-making untethered from Western classical traditions. As an ancient instrument born from raw materials like clay or bone, the ocarina acts as a symbol of humanity’s early connection to the earth and creativity. Its ethereal sound creates a subtly microtonal, primordial timbre that gradually transforms as the musicians transition to their primary instruments, acting as a cultural artefact to bridge the prehistoric with the present.
lately poems have been rising up in my throat
Saint Jae
Inspired by Landscape with the Elements
John Craxton, 1973-74
like songs or toads like sunbeams & moonrises but i forget to write them down so i carry them between my teeth on the bus & across the bridge & i swallow them in the lift up to my flat & my insides crawl with poems & songs & toads & the whole of the sky & my stomach growls & i listen very carefully in hopes of hearing a bar or a line or a ribbit & sometimes i find stars like diamonds on my tongue.
missing familiarity | tu lui ressembles beaucoup tu sais, à ta mère
Shani Lila Doudet
Inspired by Seven Women, Ken Currie
vacated skin
cold metal
under
stone-cold, rock-hard flesh
damaged,decayed &
(most of all)
dead.
how you long:
to pry open her wrinkled eyelids
look look look
in those dark brown pools
how you long
to drown.
(to be with her)
to drift away
from this stranger laying on a table
bearing the face of your mother
A Waver of Memory
Ren Robertson
Inspired by Seven Women, Ken Currie
You do not remember me
This old coil that twists within
This infernal flesh bathed in sin
Voice trapped in gauze
You peel back charred layers
Broken beneath, eternal flayer
Torn from seven, I come undone
Flesh from bone, blistering white
Blood distended land, our unwavering blight
You walk the earth that screams for us
An ache consumed with vitriol
That melts from flesh into history
You don’t remember me
No.
You don’t remember us.
In Contempt of the Face
Demi Sutherland
Inspired by Seven Women, Ken Currie
I know of “a mourned unknown face”. It’s mine. I know it so well in detail, in criticism - undoubtedly. But from appreciation? from love? Complexity.
Is face - person?
I am the betwixt phantom longing for this embodiment. Wanting to know myself, outside of myself.
My disorder demands of me that I desire an external truth. So, like an orphaned deer choosing a wolf family for guidance, I resort to mirrors, pictures, videos or a back catalogue of comments as evidential pieces to my ‘me’ jigsaw.
In the woods, I follow Narcissus. Still separated from his fellow huntsmen, yet striding confidently. I watch him, love for him in my being, but my inability to say it, and my caution in attempting to do so again. His rejection cut me so badly, that I am weaker from it.
From the thicket of my hiding place, I watch him kneel to drink from a small pool. He cups the water, but as the surface settles—he notices. Reflecting back at him, renewing through rippled waves, the truth of his face is revealed. Obsession ensues and ensnares him.
What if, like me, Narcissus is obsessed with his self-image because he rejects what he sees? And by keeping his attention on this pain, it grew? The way that toothache seems to amplify with every constant wish it would stop.
Since early adolescence, perplexity, disdain, and frustration have joined me at the pool of my own reflection. But I can’t look away. My eyes must keep on observing like some Orwellian ‘Big Brother’, allowing me control. The power of knowing thy enemy.
Day lapsed to night a plenty. His back contorted him closer, his eyes entranced, studying solemnly.
“The cheat that you are seeking has no place.
Avert your gaze and you will lose your love,
for this that holds your eyes is nothing save
the image of yourself reflected back to you.
It comes and waits with you; it has no life;
it will depart if you will only go.” (Ovid 3.138-250)
Peterhead Granite
Ruth Reid
Inspired by Nostalgia, Hironori Katagiri, 2001
… “So, the stone appears to become a landscape that transcends time and space to stir the imagination of the viewer. This work proposes to see the world freely with our imagination through our bodies and all five senses.”
- Memento Mori
Heft me from the ice blocked quays,
the fish-oiled greased yellow pvc
hew me from the net stunned eyes of haddies,
the swift kick-sharp sniff in the lavs
hauk me from the cold-soaked throats in the Mission,
the tannic reeked tea of hot breakfasts
I’ll sink to the seabed, as quick as ony here
- A trawlerman drops his only phone on Union Street
screen
frozen
in
facsimile
momentarily
veins
chisel
blank,
glass
-cracked
- Hagoromo
Between the shuttered kiosk
and the monument to permanent impermanence
a postnuptial swan stands,
indecisive
while on the bench
the girl from Gunmā
scrolls
endlessly
Dymphna’s Dogs
Jules Forrest
Inspired by Encumbered, Lindy Richardson, 2020
Everyone’s heard of them. The Black Dogs. Sent to you so mercilessly. They seek out their prey, the most vulnerable target and strike when defence cannot be offered. Merciless. That’s what people think of when they think of the Black Dogs—hounds of Horror. But that’s not what I think about…
I think of Dymphna, how lonely she must feel, how desperate she must be for companionship. Companions who weren't just her dogs of despair. They curled around her feet, and to a passerby, they would look no more than harmless lapdogs. But to us, we see it differently. They weighed on her, nibbling, biting, chewing, gnawing at her feet, so ferociously she should have been nothing more than a skeleton, but in reality there was no blood, no evidence of the damage they inflicted upon her. Silent scars, screaming.
I want to help her. Reach for her, save her from her pack. I cannot, they are one. But there is still hope, days when the pack grows slightly smaller or lets her wonder somewhat further, before coaxing her back into their familiar warmth. These days are happy, she climbs the layers of grief like mountains, and I cheer her on. Forever wishful that one day she will see the butterflies flowing with brightness around her head, and she too will be able to fly away with them and leave her Black Dogs far behind as a burden for others to carry.
Into the Crush Hall
James Howard
Inspired by Into the Oceanic, Elizabeth Ogilive & Robert Page, 2021
Grey and cerulean, rolling under and through, waves of blue carbon
mirroring, the push and pull of students as
they ebb and flow between classes
The crush hall, honing new ideas, new art for inspiration,
compounding our hope for human survival,
trickle turns river, turns ocean, of people
Basking in the knowledge that this art,
this future,
is ours
Bringing new life to the idea that we may
all make it through the inevitable, and reverse
this slowly growing sea storm
Climate change held back by forests of seagrass and kelp
reinforced by the small green spaces on either side of the crush
A chance to stop and stare, to change the tides
before we’re all dragged under
everGreen
Sarah Corr
Inspired by ‘After the Storm (Tiree), Frances Walker, 1987
This piece was inspired by Frances Walker’s ‘After the Storm’. It begins with the melody from a common nursery rhyme, – The Wheels on the Bus – a tune that is very familiar. Throughout the piece, the tune becomes less and less recognisable, until you can barely recognise it anymore. The warping of the nursery rhyme is like how our world is and will be warped by climate change, but the familiar things we remember, although different, still remain – like the green, rolling hills in Walker’s painting.
Legacy in Ash and Mist
Hiro Kyo
Inspired by Arctic Mural, James Morrison, 1995.
Legacy in Ash and Mist is a multisensory composition inspired by the painting Arctic Mural. The artwork presents a fragile landscape rendered in cold blues and muted greys, where melting ice and exposed earth evoke a quiet meditation on nature’s gradual disappearance. It reflects not only environmental decline, but also the erosion of memory and cultural legacy.
The music draws upon the Scottish folk tune Skye Boat Song, reimagined in a stripped-back, slow-moving arrangement. Its sparse, transparent textures evoke the stillness of an empty landscape, while the melody drifts like mist across glacial air. The sound world is intentionally restrained, allowing silence and space to carry as much weight as the notes themselves. It is a reflection on time suspended—on what fades, and what remains.
Audiences are invited to engage with the work through a complementary scent experience. The fragrance released from the scent cards is designed to evoke the atmosphere of the painted landscape: the coolness of mist, the scent of damp earth, and the faint trace of something ancient slipping away. Together, sound, image and scent create an immersive environment in which visitors may experience the quiet dissolution of a world.
Legacy in Ash and Mist offers a moment to witness and reflect; to listen, to breathe, and to consider what it means to remember.
Home
Dhanya Baburaj
Inspired by Arctic Mural, James Morrison, 1995
We—the survivors—are not the true witnesses. The true witnesses, those in possession of the unspeakable truth, are the drowned, the dead, and the disappeared.
–Ruta Sepetys (Salt to the Sea)
Truth is constant. It doesn’t change – with or without a witness. As I look at the artic mural, I see that truth stare right back at me. I wonder whether this sublime truth is what the artist wanted to convey through this.
Among all the blue and white brushstrokes here and there, I notice a hint of subtle darkness…lurking somewhere hidden. It reminds me of RMS Titanic and I realise most people will recognize the name as it’s a story the world is familiar with…the lost sapphire, a treasure nobody stopped looking for. If RMS Titanic is a tragedy of shattered dreams, CGS C. D. Howe[1] is a tragedy of broken trust.
Wrapped in a rainbow[2] of trust shrouded in deceit, families were taken away to a home far away from their home. I wonder what they felt when they realized they were being led to a place their hope and freedom will be frozen for eternity. I wonder when families said “come back home”, did they get confused between the world they wanted to be in and the world they were expected to be in?
Today, as I look at this painting, I salute the strong, determined survivors and pioneers who despite the darkness around them provided that glimmer of hope to their community.
[1] This ship was involved in a forced resettlement of Inuit families in the High Arctic.
[2] Seven colours in the rainbow represent the first seven families who were relocated.
Panel #33
Max Robeson
Inspired by This Fragile Earth, exhibition.
This piece is inspired by the collective artworks in the Crush Hall and the overarching theme this year of 'This Fragile Earth', I wanted to reduce the individual pieces to get a better sense of the overall picture. The composition is therefore called Panel #33, because I then saw each of the pieces of art as panels in the mosaic that was created in that room, as they contributed to the underlying theme.
The Divine Sky
Alysha Boa Morte Santos
Inspired by The Divine Sky Series, Sekai Machache, 2020.
Heritage fills the negative space.
Or
are our histories the ink
that bleeds into porcelain,
ornate splatters of ocean lustre,
our Indigo
b
l
o
o
d
l
i
n
e
.
The space
between who I am and
who they were is fluid.
It is Indigo,
a sea track formed in shadow
l i m i n a l
an invisible route
with roots that grow deeper
into
our being and
further
into
our lineage.
While we now hold
the privilege of a blank canvas
a pristine vase
a white frame
a bare body
a vessel with which to start over
we still adorn ourselves
with the deepest shades
of
Indigo.
Ley___Lines
E. Olsen
Inspired by Coming Autumn, Brandon Logan, 2023
This work takes the form of a visual poem.
If you would like to read it in the published brochure, contact the Art Collection
art.collection@stir.ac.uk
Locomotive Descending a Staircase
Jack Gardner
Inspired by Locomotive Descending a Staircase, Georgie Wyllie, YEAR
George Wyllie’s Locomotive Descending a Staircase reflects on Glasgow's industrial past; its subject matter is not obscured by metaphor and easily identifiable in the artist’s humorous language. I took a similarly literal interpretation in my piece, using sounds reminiscent of train noises such as mechanically rhythmic viola double stops, high whistles in the flute, and the low airy weight of legato slurred bassoon lines. The music's journey from stability to chaos echoes the sculpture's descent.
Waiting
Catherine Ogston
Inspired by Steven in Gran’s living room, Margaret Mitchell, 1994
Mum promised tae pick us up early tonight and I was fit tae bursting aboot playin fitba wi Jamesie, but the clock ticked on and on and she still wasnae here, and Charlene started tae cry so Granny telt me tae cheer her up so I said I’d play her stupid café game again ev’n though I’d done it fur hours and couldnae drink any mair cups ae pretend tea or eat any mair imaginary biscuits and even she was bored wi it, and when she wandered off I asked Granny why Mum always had tae be at work and she threw me a look, that look that said you better watch what yer complaining aboot, yer maw works tae gie you shoes tae wear, she said, and a roof o’er yer heid and that’s a lot mair than that waste ae space that calls himself yer da does, and I winced because nothing guid ever happens when Da’s brought intae hings, and Granny flipped a fish finger o’er that hard I thought it was gonnae jump oot the baking tray, and I wondered aboot telling her that on Mum’s days off she lies in bed, juist staring at the ceiling and I hae tae get Charlene her cereal and sometimes I take money oot Mum’s purse tae get mair milk because I learnt that at school, aboot how milk’s good fur aw yer teeth and bones, and then I’m thinking aboot Jamesie again and him waiting fur me at the park and the morrow I’ll need tae tell him I’m sorry, it wasnae ma fault, and it’s no Mum’s fault either, but when Granny puts doon the plates, both her eyes on the kitchen clock, those fish fingers get right stuck in ma throat.